Pass the bucket....

I thought for many years that a good number of libdem policies were good, in theory. They got good as saying what the electorate wanted to hear when they had no power. Now we know what to expect in practice.

We have an easier solution in Australia - preferential voting. If, for example, Labour is your first choice and LibDem your next, and you quite like a certain independent, tolerate the Greens, but you hate the Tories, you would vote for the candidates:
Labour 1
LibDem 2
Indep 3
Green 4
Con 5

If Labour only got 45% and Conservative 46% of the primary vote, the second preferences would be counted as full votes. If more considerably more Labour voters chose LibDems as second choice, this would get Labour over the line.

Preferences are ignored when one gets over 50%.

Also voting is compulsory - well, you have to turn up and get your name crossed off, but you can put in a blank. These are called informal votes. Because voting is compulsory, there are many polling booths and systems in place for postal voting and voting at home.

It is one thing about Australia that I think is great - the electoral system. There is an independent electoral commission too, which changes boundaries when demographics change.

Our system means that people are more likely to get the government that they want, or at least one they can tolerate. It means post-election coalitions are less likely, though we do have a permanent coalition between two Tory-type parties, the Liberals and the Nationals. At least, people know what they are voting for. Last time, though, Labour and the conservative coalition were so close, Labour had to do a deal with the greens.

In the UK people voting LibDem probably had no idea they were facilitating a conservative government, And then when the LibDems renegged on a vital promise, no wonder folks are peed off.

I would never trust LibDems again. Not that I trust any of them really.

Oh, just remembered, our last Tory PM, John Howard, introduced the concept of two kinds of promises; core promises and non-core promises, the latter being breakable.

Yeah, right.

The problem with the apology is that it wasn't saying sorry for breaking the pledge; it was saying sorry for making the pledge as it was unrealistic.

It was a huge mistake not to honour the promise, bad for trust in what I hoped would be a new kind of politics. However, possibily better to apologise than not - we deserved the apology, - it doesn't mean we have to trust, particularly Clegg, in future.

I would strongly disagree with those who deplore the concept of coalition government, - (all parties are in any case coalitions of sorts). Surely it is better to have a government that includes a broader point of view, than a single party government, captured by a faction of the winning party, which with a minority of votes, claims a mandate to do whatever it wishes. It might be worth noting that the most successful economies in Europe normally govern through coalition, - this means there is at least a possibility of government through reason and discussion and evidence, not just through mindless partisan slogans.

It was a huge mistake not to honour the promise, bad for trust in what I hoped would be a new kind of politics. However, possibily better to apologise than not - we deserved the apology, - it doesn't mean we have to trust, particularly Clegg, in future.

I would strongly disagree with those who deplore the concept of coalition government, - (all parties are in any case coalitions of sorts). Surely it is better to have a government that includes a broader point of view, than a single party government, captured by a faction of the winning party, which with a minority of votes, claims a mandate to do whatever it wishes. It might be worth noting that the most successful economies in Europe normally govern through coalition, - this means there is at least a possibility of government through reason and discussion and evidence, not just through mindless partisan slogans.

Cagsy The Lib Dem pledge on tuition fees in their manifesto was far more than a "glib one liner" and the reason why many young people, voting for the first time, voted Lib Dem. Capitulation over this as the price of governmental office has been seen – and in my opinion was – betrayal on a grand scale.

I am enjoying #CleggBoyBand on Twitter!

i find it totally disrepectful and insulting that mps and other high office bodies, now think its ok to do and say what they like, and that by saying sorry , its assumed that all is forgotten and forgiven! not by me, i maybe older but i,m not dafter [i think !]

Nanad, you are right about some local politicians and I hope I am not accused of sexism when I say that in my experience the men are the worst back-biters and back-stabbers. As a successful chair of a major committee on my local metropolitan council, I was the victim of one of these ruthlessly ambitious men, who stabbed me in the back and managed to persuade the rest of our party members to support him in grabbing the post from under my feet. He is now a fat cat MP and has a minor job in the coalition government. Meanwhile, I was able to continue to support my ward residents and also to chair another committee until I decided I had had enough and retired undefeated twelve years ago.

It isn't the silly soundbites that make me distrust politicians - it is the over-claiming on expenses and their lack of experience of the real world of work. Too many go from university straight into a job as a researcher and then a safe seat is found for them, provided they will endorse anything their cabinet proposes.

I have been involved with local politicians Cagsy and frankly found them even worse than MPs. The infighting was a real eye opener. So few people are willing or able to put themselves forwarded at Parish Council, Town Council or District Council level that it inevitably falls to little Hitlers who want a measure of power and cannot achieve it in any other way except through local politics.

We are all too quick to pillory politicians, in a democracy they have to encourage us to vote for them and so few of us are willing to really educate ourselves about issues. They end up with with glib one liners because that's all we and the media give them time for.
Perhaps if more of us were willing to get involved in political parties in our local areas they would be more representative of us all and have to be more grounded. Single issue politics is often more attractive but we'd have to have a diifferent system, not party based, to make that work in any way.
Apathy and a dreadful tabloid press do not a healthy democracy make

baNana !!!!

Sorry, the charity is mentioned - Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust, of which his wife is a patron!

music.uk.msn.com/blog/editor.aspx

At least some charity or other will benefit from NC's disastrous 'apology'!

I don't like any of them, apart from a few mavericks like Frank Field who tell it like it is and seem to have a degree of integrity, but of course they are always consigned to the back benches.

Can I take it you dont like him much then? baNANA

I can't stand him, I think he's a grade A bullshitting career politician who is totally out of touch. A while ago someone asked him if he knew what the weekly pension was and he replied I think it's about £30. For heaven's sake could anyone live on that! I also don't care that he has to take it in turns to take his kids to their CATHOLIC school, him being an atheist and all, so angry looking Miriam can get into the office early and earn sheds loads of money as a human rights lawyer. Ditto Cameron don't care if you can put rice crispies in a bowl and talk to your children at the same time, so what! That's the trouble with toffs they think we care about all this crap, it's all a load of flim flam. Hope Clegg loses his seat then he can sod off back to the Eurozone and cause chaos there.

B - Brilliant in eeeuuww kind'a way

I think women MPs get even more discussion of their appearance - who can forget Theresa May's shoes?
I think TV has a lot to answer for - nobody discussed MPs personal features in the 1960's because we didn't know what most of them looked like.

Agree with Nfk. Why would anyone be surprised? They all do it, anything they think they can get away with to get more votes. He has to apologise now in order to position himself before the next election. They are all the same. As someone once said "don't vote for any of them, it only encourages them!" I still do though.

Ana I thought that about the hair too and saw a few different colours in different clips. Why do we notice that? We don't with women?

HOON, even! May get it right eventually.

Yes, of course, absent - was obviously getting him confused with the erstwhile Labour defence secretary, Geoff Hune!

Bags Well it was more convincing than the original.

Still nauseating, but funny with it.